A lover to burn
by obedientlittlevictor
Summary: Deeks goes undercover. Under the covers. Undercover. His worlds converge and merge and collapse. He doesn't quite know what to do with it all. It all burns to the ground.
1. Chapter 1

**August 2008**

"Georgiana Abrams. Though I prefer Georgia, like the country."

He thinks it would be too cliché to compare her smoky tones to honey. Or even call them smoky tones. God, what the fuck is this woman doing to him.

"Well, Georgia like the country, my name is Marty Deeks, and I'm looking forward to showing you the ropes around this hellhole. I mean, this station."

Deeks flashes his winsome, thousand watt smile, the kind that got women (and men) to grope themselves just thinking about it.

Georgia throws her head back and laughs a deep, throaty laugh. Maybe he's reading too much into it, but the laugh seems haughty. Like she knows something he doesn't.

"I look forward to it, Detective Deeks."

"Deeks works just fine. Everyone else calls me Deeks. Or Marty, if you want to call me something more," Deeks pauses and raises an eyebrow seductively, "intimate."

"Deeks it is," Georgia returns without skipping a beat.

"Ah, you don't get _intimately_ _involved_ with your partners?" Deeks knows he is toeing a fine line of propriety, but he just got back from a huge win in the field and he feels invincible.

Georgia's eyes flash something precarious. If he weren't a seasoned detective and detector of lies and deception, he would have missed it. She covers it quickly by stepping closer to him and sweeping her hand across his chest.

His t-shirt is thin enough that he can feel the heat of her hand. He doesn't move it, reminding himself how long it's been since he's gotten laid.

"I suppose you will just have to stick around to find out."

Deeks would be lying if he said he had been expecting Georgia to play the game so inherently. Her eyes meet his in a dangerous challenge and he won't admit to anyone that he's equal parts turned on and terrified.

"Abrams, Deeks. Your covers are ready," some poor tech geek squeaked out at the sight of the new woman touching the hot undercover detective of the station.

Georgia digs her nails into the skin at the back of his neck before stepping back primly.

"Thank you, Ms. Pelletier."

Deeks stares between Georgia and the tech girl who had been hired fresh out of college to prepare convincingly real documents. He never asked her name, just threw out a quick thanks before snatching up his ID's.

_Pelletier_.

He would remember that. His newbie is already outshining him. And from the look on Ms. Pelletier's face, she is thrilled beyond belief to be receiving any sort of recognition.

Georgia holds her perfectly manicured right hand out to accept the driver's licenses with a glance at them. "I appreciate you keeping my first name, Kelly."

_Kelly Pelletier_.

Wow, he is looking really bad.

"Thanks, Kelly. We'll be in touch," Deeks adds, forcing enough levity into his voice to make it seem like he already had known Kelly Pelletier's name this whole time.

Deeks starts walking briskly toward the doors of the station to his beat-up truck, checking his right side to make sure Georgia is in step with him. Of course she is. This one is growing on him, as much as a partner could grow on him.

"You don't work much with partners."

She states it, doesn't ask it.

"Nope."

Deeks doesn't ask her how she knows this. It's kind of a creepy thing to know automatically. Some high-up or another probably gave her a briefing on how to handle his lonewolf tendencies.

"I don't either."

It's probably not all that strange that she offers this piece of information to him. That's what partners do, he thinks.

"Why now? Why here?"

"Fresh start."

Again, Deeks doesn't ask her to elaborate. He doesn't much care about her background, except that she is very well-regarded from the NYPD undercover unit. So long as she could memorize a cover and act on instinct and shoot straight, he is fine with being partnered with a brunette firecracker.

He always had a thing for brunettes.

"That's just what you're getting, Mrs. Dalton. A fresh start. And a partner."

"Just what I wanted, Mr. Dalton. A fresh start. And a partner."

* * *

><p><strong>October 2014<strong>

"I always find that it helps me when I talk about things that are bothering me."

"It never helps when you're bothering me."

Kensi's voice is surprisingly steady, considering that her interview with Chief Investigator Wallace was about Afghanistan. Her own personal hell. And maybe his too.

"Touché."

Deeks pauses to laugh like he knows Kensi expects him to.

"Except I'm being serious."

Deeks manages to keep his own voice steady, unlike the hysterical staccato of his heartbeat. The rise and fall of Kensi's shoulders is careful and controlled, but he could feel her heart being torn into tiny pieces. But maybe those pieces have been shattered since a desert and an ex-fiance and he was too late, too late, always too late.

"Come on, partners don't keep secrets."

Except that, sometimes, partners do keep secrets.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: This is my first jaunt into the NCIS: LA world, so I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you in advance for reading and reviewing!<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**The one where he learns about her. The one where his memory of her proves useful more than half a decade ****later.**

* * *

><p><strong>August 2008<strong>

"How deep under have you been?"

It is an innocent enough question, Deeks tells himself. He is simply trying to gauge the experience level of his new partner. He still mentally flinches when he thinks about how he would not only be responsible for his own ass, but for hers too. On a mission like this, no mistakes could be made. No mistakes would be tolerated, because any mistake could cost them their covers and their lives.

"Deep enough that I could have had trouble coming back, but not deep enough that I _couldn't_ come back."

Georgia doesn't look at him when she says it, just stares out the dirty window of the truck he would soon have to give up when he goes undercover. He's had the truck for as long as he's been driving, and honestly he's surprised that the shitty truck hasn't called it quits and drove itself off a cliff to end its misery.

Deeks thinks that that was a good answer, vague and open-ended enough to skirt around any substantial response. He would have answered the same way. Georgia has clearly had practice in answering a question without actually saying anything at all.

Deeks can't tell by the bland tone of her voice if she wants him to stop talking about it, so he saves the topic for later. Even if he were able to read her voice better, he probably would have still pushed her for details eventually. Trading battle scar stories could be saved for _not_ their first day together.

"Take a right up here."

They are driving back to her apartment. Deeks is driving his new partner back to her apartment. His partner. He shakes his head to himself at that again. Georgia sees the movement out of the corner of her eye but doesn't comment.

The mission they are going on is deep cover, obviously, and Deeks has so graciously offered to drive her back to grab clothes and maybe weapons and secure whatever she needs to before going under in the morning. It would all start tomorrow morning, and while his affairs are always in order, he wants to make sure she isn't overwhelmed.

If she's as experienced as his supervisors suggested, Georgia would have a go-bag waiting and ready to go. Deeks ignores the truth: he wants to test her.

They drive in silence, save for the directions she occasionally gives him. The thought of reaching over to hold her hand crosses his mind, but why on earth would he do that? It would't feel natural. Not at all.

"Do you ever think about leaving this life? I mean, you're still young. You could walk away and find something much better than this."

He can't believe how condescending that sounded. She can't be much younger than him, maybe a few years. Hell, he is still young.

"How old do you think I am? And you would know all about walking away, wouldn't you, _counselor_?"

Georgia stresses the last word so strongly that he can't help but visibly wince. He doesn't know where to start with his line of questioning. He supposes that it isn't a hidden secret that he came to the LAPD from being a practicing attorney, but it's still her first official day on the job. Maybe she actually did her research on her new partner.

"25, tops. Nice, snooty East Coast school spit out the perfect Criminal Justice major. Maybe even graduated early. Fresh out of college when you joined the Force."

It is all speculation. Deeks hadn't even looked at the file that was tossed on his desk, the desk he rarely sat at, before groaning and slamming his forehead against the folder. When his supervisor told him that he was going undercover again, he had really hoped it would be alone.

He realizes it isn't that bad, having company. He wants to like her. He think he might already.

"I'm your age, Deeks," Georgia snorts out a laugh, indicating she isn't the least bit offended by his assumptions of her. "You didn't read my file, did you?"

"Nope," Deeks pops the 'p' in the word and grins smartly at her. Georgia rolls her eyes.

"My birthday is March 1, in case you're wondering when you should buy my gift. I like Berettas, dogs, mountains, and fruit smoothies."

"Noted, my dear wife."

* * *

><p><strong>December 2014<strong>

There is nothing but stunned silence filling the Ops Center.

"Play that video again, Nell," Callen orders. There is no sound to the security camera feed, but they could all imagine the screams of terror from the frantic bystanders; the groans of agony from the lone remaining breathing man with bullets lodged in his shoulder and hip joints, bleeding out on the Los Angeles sidewalk; the faint echoes of the sirens that had probably already been called.

The woman finds the camera quickly and easily, as if she knew that someone would be watching. She makes a quick sign with her hands and an almost apologetic smile at the camera before flipping up the hood of her jacket and casually walking away from the crowd that is starting to gather.

Casually as if she hasn't just had a man press a knife against her throat and demand she get into his car. Casually as if she hasn't just gunned down four terrorists that NCIS had been searching for, killing three and conveniently leaving one alive and breathing. Casually as if every woman carries a bra holster and could shoot with deadly accuracy while being trapped in a chokehold and literally blindfolded.

Kensi almost makes a comment about not being the only one to own and wear a bra holster, but one look in her partner's direction makes her hold her tongue.

Eric clears his throat. "The security camera lost visual on her after that. We haven't been able to place her again, but we have facial rec searching. If she pops up on any camera in the LA area, we will be alerted."

"Hetty hasn't approved the funds to send out a reward for her whereabouts, so we're going to just do this the old-fashioned, back-channel ways first. It was weird. Hetty just got this strange faraway look when we showed her the video and went back to her desk to make a phone call," Nell reports with hesitation lacing her words.

"Search who she is. I want a full background on her." Callen makes to walk out the door with Sam's strong presence following when Deeks speaks up.

"Georgiana Abrams." His voice cracks halfway through her last name but he covers it with a cough.

"She one of ours?" Kensi reaches her hand out to skim down his arm. He nudges it off and Kensi tries not to be offended. They never had a problem with the slight touches in the office, even before they started their real relationship. She knows that this woman has to be of some immense importance for Deeks to ignore the comfort she is offering.

"She was never NCIS," Deeks acknowledges weakly. He stares, horrified, at the frozen rueful twist of the woman's lips. He looks like he was using every fiber of his being to keep from rushing to the screen and touching it to see if she was real.

"LAPD?" Sam holds a surprising amount of patience in the question. The entire room could feel the tension breaching the air.

"Briefly, yes." Deeks takes a deep breath and shakes his head to try to clear his thoughts and focus on the operation at hand. "She and I were undercover together."

"Anything we should know about her? Like where she learned to kill four people while being held in a chokehold without batting an eyelash?" It is Callen's voice this time.

"She was trained well. Frighteningly well. A variety of martial arts under her belt. Best at hand-to-hand combat. Hated long range weapons. Preferred Berettas. Loved dogs and mountains and fruit smoothies. Born March 1, 1979. Died December 26, 2008."


	3. Chapter 3

**The one where he isn't Justin and she isn't Melissa, because _she_ isn't in the picture, not yet.**

* * *

><p><strong>May 2012<strong>

_"When two agents are forced to live together undercover as man and wife, it is only natural that the situation could bring about... unfamiliar feelings and emotions."_

Hetty's voice echoes through his head as he unpacks his suitcase– Justin's suitcase in Justin's and Melissa's suburbia home. Deeks suppresses a bitter laugh, because those feelings and emotions are nothing if not familiar. If anything, those feelings and emotions are too familiar.

* * *

><p><strong>August 2008<strong>

"Where did you get that?"

Georgia doesn't say a word, just lifts her finger to her lips and rummages through her duffle bag, which Deeks had wrongfully assumed was just clothes. Turns out she knows how to start a party. She flips a switch on her little black box and the room is filled with a slight buzzing.

"You can speak freely now. It's a—"

"I know what that is, and I know that that is _not_ LAPD-issued. Where did you get a frequency jammer?"

Georgia smirks. "Internet."

"Bullshit."

"Yeah, but I could have bought one off the internet. Now grab a detector because we're doing a sweep for bugs in the whole house. Don't want to be caught off guard, and it would be too suspicious to use the jammer all the time. Do it quickly, or whoever is possibly listening will get suspicious if we keep it on for too long."

"_If_ anyone is even listening. It's our first day. Which would mean this safehouse is compromised and maybe our covers too."

"Which is why we should work quickly."

Georgia tosses a small black bag at Deeks and holds up her own box. She makes her way through the bedroom meticulously, checking behind the dressers and headboard of their bed.

"You can start anytime, _Michael_," Georgia suggests, using his cover name sarcastically. Deeks still stares at her halfway under the bed. "Or you could continue to stare at my very impressive ass. I'm a yoga instructor, after all."

"I can't believe you got the cool job."

"Yoga instructor is the cool job?" Georgia looks over her shoulder at Deeks who doesn't bother to take his eyes off her ass.

"Better than a paper pusher at an insurance agency," Deeks whines with his head thrown back. "I don't even look like I would be hired at an insurance agency."

"You'll have interactions with the mobster terrorist funder we're after, and I will have access to his hot wife."

"I'll _bet_ you'll have access to her. All of her," Deeks leers.

"Try to withhold your jealousy about it. Maybe you should start doing yoga. I could see you in a nice yoga class. Definitely one of those outdoors, tree-hugging, one-with-nature yoga studios. Tons of yoga bunnies to impress. Say you're in a band, yoga bunnies love that. They will just eat it up. Have a dramatic break-up in front of them, and they'll be crawling over each other trying to comfort you in your time of need."

"Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have to try it some time. You wouldn't happen to be willing to break up with me, would you?"

"Not when we still have a mission to complete. Bedroom is clear. I'll take the bathroom, you get the kitchen. We'll meet in the middle. Mark anything you find with sticky notes but don't move the bugs." Georgia tosses Deeks a pad of bright pink sticky notes.

"Taking orders from the newbie. Got it. I'm going to write sex positions on these in case we get any visitors. Then they can see all the places we've had newly-wed, christening-the-new-house sex."

Deeks is honestly hoping to get a rise out of Georgia. He shouldn't have been surprised when she plays along. She's an undercover cop after all, and her job is to roll with the punches.

"Good idea. Write some really cool positions."

Deeks nearly chokes at her words, but recovers smoothly enough. "Any suggestions, dear yogi wife?"

"The Suspended Scissors puts me in the throes of orgasmic passion in no time."

Deeks doesn't bother holding back a groan as he leaves the room.

* * *

><p>"You know what I'm thinking, sugarbear?" Deeks calls out loudly into the front entrance of the home.<p>

"What? You're thinking? Hold on, let me grab your helmet!"

Georgia's voice sounds like she's in the kitchen, and from the way it smells, she's been cooking something delicious. Deeks smiled broadly at her playful tone. He had quickly become a fan of her teasing, snarky remarks. And her brilliant wit and astounding beauty. Which is totally normal, he tells himself.

Deeks toes off his stupid black loafers and drops his stupid black insurance man briefcase. It has been two weeks and he still hasn't made contact with Iranian-American Hassan Nasir, the potential criminal mastermind they are hunting. It's LAPD's case until they prove he is funding anything terrorist-oriented, and Deeks can't wait to pass it to the FBI.

Hassan had apparently developed a suspicious fondness for the family-owned insurance company where Deeks has been unhappily employed for the past two weeks. An anonymous tip from a C.I. gave them enough fuel to form the undercover fact-finding operation.

Georgia, on the other hand, has quickly befriended Hassan's pretty American wife, Delia.

"Sex! I'm thinking about sex."

"You're always thinking about sex, sweetcheeks."

Georgia responds with a twinkling laugh, no doubt conscious of the audio bug that had been planted in the kitchen shortly after she had made contact with Hassan's wife. The house proved clear two weeks ago when she and Deeks had moved in during their preliminary sweep, and even last week, before she and Delia were friends. It is just her opinion, but she think it's a bit overcautious to plant bugs in the homes of all of your wife's friends.

"Except this time I'm thinking about sex with you."

Deeks smirks to himself and his cleverness.

"Har har. Very cute."

Georgia catches Deeks's eye and he motions toward the bedroom. He makes the universal surfer sign with both hands and swings his wrists from left to right, the American Sign Language word for 'party'.

Georgia had tried to teach Deeks basic sign language so they could communicate without the bugs knowing. While languages might not be his forte, Deeks had taken a liking to that sign in particular, so that quick hand gesture had promptly become their signal for having intel that they need to share with each other either without prying eyes, or in this case, prying audio bugs.

"You are such a master of seduction, I am suddenly _so_ in the mood that the floors will have to be cleaned after this."

"Hot."

Georgia rolls her eyes when she realizes Deeks probably isn't even joking when he says it. She obliges by going into the bedroom, the one room in the house that is blissfully not bugged with audio or visual. Their terrorist-funding suspect might be paranoid, but at least he's not a pervert.

If they turn up the stereo enough, the bugs aren't likely to pick up on their hushed whispers. When the bug was discovered in their nightly sweep a week ago, they had loudly cited that they need loud music to keep the neighborhood kids from hearing them have sex.

The Top 40 pop station starts to blare some Chris Brown song and Deeks throws himself face first on the bed.

"I hate my job," Deeks mutters into the duvet cover.

"I know, but you learned something. What is the something you learned?"

Georgia climbs on the bed gracefully and slides over his legs. She presses her fingertips into the tense knots of his lower back and is thanked with a loud groan of appreciation. She leans down and whispers, "No way the bugs didn't pick up on that. Way to sell the cover, sweetcheeks."

"Just doing my job," Deeks moans just as Georgia moves her hands to the left. "Like you clearly did your job when you went under as a masseuse."

"I was never undercover as a masseuse."

"Impossible. How did you get so good at this?"

Georgia chuckles a bit to herself. "My sister was involved in a lot of sports. We both were. She had the worst knots in her muscles that I have ever felt. Yours included. I got good at playing masseuse to keep her from bitching about sore muscles."

"I didn't know you had a sister."

"I do. Victoria. She teaches yoga, so that's where I picked up most of my moves."

"In New York?"

"Outside D.C."

Georgia works a particular knot between Deeks's shoulders until he reaches his hand out to pat her thigh. She slips off of his legs and sits cross-legged on the bed.

"What's the news?"

"I finally saw Head Hancho Hassan."

"About fucking time. Did you make contact or just see him? And seriously, you need a better codename for him."

Deeks smiles and shakes his head too indicate no hope for changing his codename.

"No such luck, wifey. They asked me to take my lunch break. At 10:30. Not suspicious at all."

Georgia laughs out loud at their absurd naïveté.

"You would think, if you're going to fund money to terrorist organizations out of an insurance company, you would be a bit smarter."

"You would be surprised at the stupidity of the world. Speaking of stupidity, how's Triple-H's wife?"

"Much better codename," Georgia mutters with an eye roll. "She's a good trophy wife, that's for sure. Hates her husband, loves his money. Unfortunately, she hasn't spoken to me about his business, if she knows anything about it at all. But she did invite me to do yoga at her house sometime. Says she has the perfect backyard for sunrise yoga."

Deeks leans over and presses his hand onto the other side of Georgia's face, trapping her between his arms. She doesn't move, doesn't even seem phased by his blatant invasion of personal space.

"Good to know you're not just with me for the money. Since I have none."

Georgia quirks an eyebrow as Deeks trails his left hand down her right side, still hovering over her.

"Tell me something, Georgia." Deeks leans in closer and ducks his head directly next to her ear to whisper. "Where do you keep your gun while you do yoga?"

Georgia groans and pushes him off of her as he laughs.

"I bet you'd love to know. But for your information, I don't need a gun to take down a room full of yoga bunnies. Or a dozen grown men, for that matter."

Deeks snorts in disbelief. "No fucking way. You're, what? 5'7", 130? 135 pounds soaking wet?"

"You've given quite a bit of thought to me, soaking wet, haven't you?" Georgia manages to say that with a straight face before they burst into laughter. "Really, though. Victoria and I took a bunch of martial arts classes growing up."

"You're sister is just like you, isn't she?"

"Literally, yes. We're twins."

"I don't know what kind of cruel god was in charge of that. How can this world handle more than one of you?"

"I don't know, but it's been doing just fine with the chaos Victoria and I have caused for the past 29 years. I think the world will survive with me in it, possibly even after I leave it too."


	4. Chapter 4

**The one where Kensi isn't the first to call him Deeks in bed. The one where the marriage was more real than fake.**

* * *

><p><strong>September 2008<strong>

"That was an unnecessary risk and you fucking know it!"

The ocean waves crash over the rocks with more force than usual for a September in LA. It is as if nature agrees with the fury of Georgia Dalton, or Georgia Abrams, even she doesn't know who is screaming at Deeks at this point. All she knows is that he had taken a gamble on both of their lives. It had paid off, yes, but that doesn't negate the emotions that pulse through her veins, icy like the stinging, misty ocean breeze.

"I saw a chance to move our op forward by _weeks_. I took it. It worked. Get the fuck over it, Georgia."

"You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"Wrong. I could have gotten both of us killed. But I didn't. You would have done the same thing if you were in my position, we both know that. Now do you want to address the real issue here, or are you going to continue to cover your actual feelings with this bullshit argument?"

The argument started because Deeks decided to forcibly insert himself into Hassan's operation. He had marched right in to his meeting with the President of the insurance company that Deeks had infiltrated, John "Big Rich" Diederich, feigning ignorance until Hassan had pointed gun to his head. Then he admitted to knowing Hassan and Diederich were funneling money to some other cause, after which he offered to use his own contacts in the accounting field to employ better ways to embezzle from the innocent victims of an insurance fraud. They brought him in with the threat of "_slicing up his pretty little wife_." That was more than enough of a threat to keep Michael Dalton in line.

Now, Deeks is taking a major risk here even bringing up their feelings for each other. But they have to be addressed eventually, faced head-on or it will eat their partnership alive from the inside out.

Georgia stares, dumbfounded at the nonchalant stance that Deeks adopts, leaning against the rocky cliff wall. Each time the waves crash, he gets a bit of the ocean spray, but they are both already soaked from the earlier unexpected downpour, so it doesn't make much of a difference anyway. It has slowed to a slight drizzle now, and they steadfastly ignore it.

"Don't play dumb, Georgia. It really doesn't suit you."

His voice is softer this time. His pointed look leaves no room for interpretation. He is obviously talking about the way that this mission no longer felt like a mission, and all it had taken was a mere five weeks. Pathetic, he thinks of himself. Not of her.

He still doesn't know quite what to think of her. He's been in deeper covers for longer times and he hasn't made this mistake. But then again, he hasn't ever had a partner like her. He hasn't even met a woman like her before now.

"No. No, Deeks, this isn't how it works."

Georgia starts pacing in front of him, shaking her head to herself. She looks like she's waging a war in her mind.

"Maybe it's not how it _should_ work, but you can't deny it. _We_ can't deny it."

"We are professionals." Her argument is weak and they both know it. Georgia stops directly in front of Deeks, five feet away, glaring at him. "Fuck you."

It happens so quickly that neither of them can completely process it until what feels like eternities later. One moment, Georgia is cursing Deeks's entire existence and the next, she is the one pressed against the cliff face with rocks digging into her suddenly bare back. Her legs are wrapped around his waist and she's moaning into his mouth and he's moaning back. His fingers press insistently on the backs of her thighs and she grinds against him.

Just as quickly as it starts, though, they pull apart, staring in complete disbelief at each other. It isn't as if they haven't kissed before; it's impossible to maintain a cover as a newly-wed couple if they don't get caught in a few make out sessions, but this is different. This is full of all of the emotions they both have ignored with every fiber of their being. Until now.

They look at each other and they both know the charade is over. There is no going back, but their leveled stare indicates that neither are able or even willing to go back.

"Take me home, Deeks."

"You really think that would be a good place to go right now?"

Deeks can't discern even in his own mind if he means that they might be watched by Hassan's men or if he means they shouldn't go down the path that their half-naked and overheated bodies seem to be insistent on going down.

"You're right. We shouldn't do that."

Georgia unwraps her legs from behind his back and it takes all of his power not to let out a noise of disappointment at her sentiment. He doesn't agree with it, but he will respect it, because he respects her.

She grabs her soggy t-shirt from the sand and shakes it futilely before slipping it back on. His thoughts must be more readable than he's trying to conceal, if the look in her eyes is any indicator. She reaches her hand to his jawline and he meets her lips halfway.

"We shouldn't do this _here_," Georgia clarifies, and it's as if a weight is lifted from his heart. "And we shouldn't do this at the house."

Deeks nods in acknowledgement, but all he can focus on is the dark red tint of her lips and the slight breathlessness in her voice that he had only ever heard from her after a long run. He will probably never be able to hear it again without getting hard.

"Take me to a hotel with a nice, hot shower," Georgia pauses to kiss her way from his jawline to his earlobe, "then fuck me hard enough that I forget about this mission, about these criminals, about this life. Fuck me and make me believe that this, that _we_ are all real."

"It is real, Gia. Tonight, between us, between Marty Deeks and Georgia Abrams, it's real."

* * *

><p><strong>October 2014<strong>

"I've been over there," Deeks blurts out as he points to a secluded part of the beach they are surveilling. The cliff face is at least a half mile away, and just as empty as he has grown accustomed to. The sharp rocks around the area keep surfers and swimmers away.

"What? You mean you brought a girl over there to make out?"

Sam's taunting tone makes him regret bringing the place up. But he had to cover it up somehow. So he makes a joke, as usual, then internally cringes at the crudeness he is using to talk about her. She wouldn't have minded, he tells himself instead.

"Oh, we did more than make out."

"Enough, both of you. We're here to work."

Deeks takes a moment to thank all of the higher deities for Callen's interruption. Deeks gratefully shuts up. That craggily rock face is almost sacred to him years later, and he feels like he betrayed her memory for speaking about it.

"Seriously, Callen, what kind of terrorist goes to the beach?" Deeks whines. "It's nothing like their home deserts."

"You know, the Middle East has some of the most diverse physical geography in the world. Deserts are a given, but nearly all of the nations that comprise the Middle East border a body of water," Kensi recites cheerfully. "Plus the mountains even have snow."

Deeks cringes to himself. He is all too familiar with the mountains in the Middle East. If he never has to go there again, it would be all too soon.

"Got a visual. Woman standing in the pink dress with the sparkles, brown hair, enormous sunglasses. The one surrounded by Middle Eastern men from various physical geographies." Callen reports through the comms. "Your ten o'clock, Kens. Deeks, snap a few photos of your favorite model, would you?"

Callen actually means take pictures of the woman and her companions. Deeks holds up his professional camera and loudly calls out to Kensi, "Kiki, you've got to twist your hips more. Bend over, baby! How are you supposed to keep up with the Naomi Campbells of the world when you look like an encyclopedia of useless facts!"

"Excuse you. My facts are very useful!" Kensi protests, but poses anyway with a broad grin. The beach-goers around them don't bat an eyelash at the scene. It's LA, after all.

Deeks zooms in on the brunette woman now talking to a pretty, petite blonde with a toddler and nearly drops the camera. Kensi senses something is wrong and frowns at him questioningly. He shakes his head and continues to snap pictures of the group until he finds the man he is looking for.

"Guys, we've got a problem," Deeks murmurs.

"What might that be, Deeks? That we're trying to find some money laundering terrorists out to destroy America and all we hold dear?" Sam asks, burrito in one hand and iPad in the other, perched happily under an umbrella away from the sand.

"These guys aren't money launderers. Well, no, they are, but they're also pretty vicious murderers."

"How do you know that?" It's Nell's voice in his ear this time. Deeks had forgotten the rest of the OPS Center is listening in too. He ignores her question.

"Nell, get everything you can on Hassan Nasir and his wife, Delia Nasir. While you're at it, pull up the autopsy of John Diederich."

Nell starts typing more aggressively than usual, and the team can hear her muttering under her breath, reading the results of Diederich's autopsy. "Um, Diederich died from exsanguination. Oh. Oh, god. The _official_ cause of death was exsanguination, but only after he had had his wounds cauterized and blood transfusions to keep him alive for at least three weeks after the first blood-draining. They took out just enough blood for him to pass out, then revived him. Multiple times."

"Keep reading, Nell," Deeks instructs. He already knows the full story, but he can't bring himself to say it.

"They..." Nell gasps and whispers a curse, but soldiers on. "They fed him his own internal organs, until they were out of organs, then bled him out through his eviscerated gut. I think I'm going to be sick."

"Deeks, how the fuck do you know about this?" Kensi demands. Her eyes hold nothing but concern and his heart breaks for her. He thinks that maybe it would be best if she fell out of love with him. His past is so full of death, and he thinks that his future is no different. And that's no place for Kensi Marie Blye.

"Deeks," she repeats, minutes or hours later. Somehow, she has moved directly in front of him without him noticing. She places her hand on his, lowering the camera and tapping his jaw to force his eyes on hers.

"It was an LAPD case six years ago. I went undercover to try to infiltrate what we thought was a minor insurance fraud case. We thought that the Confidential Informant who tipped us off was just looking for a quick payout or was racist against Muslims or something, and that's why he added on the fact that they were terrorists. John Diederich was a normal American with an insurance company, the cover for actual terrorist funding."

"Why didn't you close the case?" Sam asks.

"I could never prove anything, but I know Hassan Nasir killed my partner. The operation was shut down. I'm going to take this fucker out myself."

Kensi grips Deeks's hand harder. She has seen him through a lot of shitty times, but she has never seen him with _this_ look on his face. It is nothing but rage. It is nothing but hatred. It is nothing but the promise of death.

Hassan Nasir doesn't stand a chance.


	5. Chapter 5

**The one where it all starts to fall apart. The one where he ends up with more questions than answers.**

* * *

><p><strong>November 2008<strong>

"You want a beer?" Deeks asks quietly, still shell shocked, but clearly not as much as Georgia, who remains standing stock-still at the front door.

She doesn't respond. Doesn't move. Doesn't meet his eyes. It's like she's not even there. She hasn't been there since Deeks physically pulled one of Hassan Nasir's henchmen off of her nearly-unconscious form.

It just was supposed to be an easy, routine check. They were having a normal, albeit awkward, Thanksgiving dinner with Georgia Dalton's friend Delia and her husband Hassan, when Deeks accidentally on purpose dropped a joke about the insurance business and how it could be so easy to funnel money. Before anyone could react, Hassan ordered Deeks into the kitchen just in time for one of his guards to press a chloroform rag over Georgia's nose without Deeks noticing. Or Delia, for that matter, who had suspiciously disappeared.

Smarter than either of them had realized, Delia knew to get the fuck out of dodge when her husband called anyone into the kitchen. By the time Deeks could apologize profusely and sincerely enough to get out of the kitchen, Hassan leveled his gun with Deeks's skull and told him to take his wife home and never speak of business in front of anyone again. When Deeks walked out, he shouldn't have been surprised to see Georgia on the floor and one of Hassan's men about to unzip his pants.

"Georgia?" Deeks tries again. This time, she lifts her eyes, but still doesn't fully meet his. She stares through him. "Do you want a beer?"

Something about his soothing tone must snap her out of whatever disturbing, nightmarish trance she was enveloped in.

"I want you."

"Georgia," Deeks starts, but doesn't bother to finish because they manage to meet each other halfway in the living room. Their lips meet in their now-familiar dance. It isn't like their other times, though, the times where they couldn't decide if they were fighting or fucking. This time is full of passion too, but there's an underlying intimacy that hadn't been there before. It should terrify him.

Deeks raises his head only to gently place his forehead against hers, arms wrapped tight around her waist. Georgia's fingernails scrape mindlessly at his shoulder blades and she chokes back a sob.

"This is bad, Deeks."

Georgia's voice is just above a cracked whisper. It's a tone he had only heard a handful of times, never from her and never from anyone else in any good situations. He doesn't correct her when she uses his real name, convinced that the audio bug in the kitchen couldn't hear her anyway.

She starts to pull away, but Deeks doesn't remove his arms from around her.

"Come here, Gia. Come here. Baby, I've got you." Usually the use of his nickname for her is reserved for their more intimate moments. Hell, this _is_ their most intimate moment, and it has nothing to do with sex.

"Deeks, I am so much better than this. I'm supposed to be better than that."

Deeks continues to rub comforting circles between her shoulders. "You were drugged. He took you by surprise."

"Which I was trained to react to!"

Deeks can't think of an adequate response to that. He knows that she prides herself on her ability to fight above all else, even above her ability to think and strategize her way out of any situation, which is held dearly.

"Deeks, I think this mission's compromised."

Georgia doesn't want to admit it, but she knows that she has to. Deeks is already on thin ice, and if he makes even the slightest misstep, they would both be in deep trouble.

"We have to keep going as if nothing is disturbed until we know for sure, Georgia," Deeks decides. It might be suicide, but they both knew what they were signing up for.

Deeks makes a promise to himself. He is going to destroy every single man who ever even thought about laying a finger on her. He will do what it takes to complete their assignment, but if he gets the chance to kill, he doesn't think he would hesitate to pull the trigger. That in itself should scare him more than it actually does.

But Georgia makes a promise too. And it's to get Deeks out of this shit storm of a mission. Both of them are determined, stubborn even, but Georgia has the resources to make anything happen. Resources that Deeks definitely doesn't have access to as an LAPD detective.

So she plans. It might not happen for weeks, since Victoria is mostly out of commission and her normal go-to partner for impossible missions like this hates her a little bit. It doesn't matter; she'll think her way through it. She always does.

Unfortunately for both of them, the only plan that Georgia can think of involves an injection and some very convincing special FX makeup.

* * *

><p><strong>December 2014<strong>

Hetty takes a long sip of her still-steaming tea, as if consciously trying to will Deeks to implode from the anxiety that's engulfing him. She uses her scarf to wipe the condensation from her glasses before returning them calmly to the bridge of her nose. At this point, it takes everything Deeks has to not pounce on her from across her desk like a enraged wild animal.

"You should know, Mr. Deeks, that Ms. Abrams is operating with Interpol, on one of their sanctioned operations," Hetty begins. She pauses, seeming to want to gauge his reaction before continuing.

Deeks's heart drops to the bottom of his stomach. For whatever reason, hearing Georgia still being referred to in present-tense sets him on edge. The fact that she is with the International Criminal Police Organization doesn't bother him. She's still a cop, sort of, internationally. At least she isn't a spy, Deeks thinks humorlessly.

"On loan from the CIA."

_Well, fuck._

Deeks must say this out loud, because Hetty raises her eyebrows in a rare expression of shock.

"What do you mean she's CIA?" He would have cringed at how dumbfounded he sounds, but he can't quite wrap his mind around anything at the moment.

"She's been with the Agency since college. Ms. Abrams and her twin sister, oh what was her name?"

Hetty pauses again to tap a finger against her lips.

"Victoria," Deeks breathes. He doesn't want to believe it. Because then he would have to admit that the possibility that everything they had, everything they were, it was all fake.

He had been in love with Georgia. He had been so in love with Georgia. He had been ready to buy her a ring and make the marriage real after the mission ended. Before she died and took half of his heart with her. Had she just been playing along for the sake of the mission? It's impossible, Deeks tells himself, because that look in her eye was all too real. Wasn't it?

"Of course. Both sisters were recruited during their final year at NYU."

"No." It sounds petulant, even to his own ears. He sounds like a child who doesn't want to accept that Santa Clause isn't real.

"Yes," Hetty corrects gently but firmly.

"No, that's not possible. CIA can't operate on American soil."

"Which is why, technically, Ms. Abrams was LAPD when you two met and worked together on the Hassan Nasir case." Hetty takes another sip of her tea. "Though, we both know that the CIA never really follows that rule."

Deeks doesn't reply. Hetty seems to sense that he probably won't make the first move to speak, so she continues.

"Do you know where she would go now?"

Yes. Of course he does. Six years passed with him believing she was buried in the cold, hard ground in a bleak New York cemetery, but that doesn't change how well he knew her. Knows her, he corrects himself, since she's alive.

But he doesn't tell Hetty. Deeks can't figure out exactly why, but he doesn't want her to know where Georgia is. He tells himself that it's because he wants to get to her first, but even then, he doesn't. He doesn't know what he would say to Georgia.

Deeks shakes his head at Hetty and walks out. He doesn't say anything at all.

If Georgia is so desperate to talk to him, Deeks knows full well that she would pull out all the stops to make it happen. So he waits.

* * *

><p>Deeks slams the door with enough force that Monty whines from his spot on his doggy bed. He almost doesn't spare a glance in his dog's direction, but the hot pink sticky note pinned to Monty's collar catches his eye.<p>

His eyes scan over the paper several times. He has to read it out loud a few more times. His lips form the words once again, but this time, nothing comes out.

"If it was ever real, please."

Laughing out loud like he has actually lost his mind, Deeks turns right around and grabs his keys, wallet, and gun from the drawer of the table by his front door. He leaves his badge without a second thought; he's not LAPD tonight. He thanks all the higher beings that Kensi isn't with him tonight, that he kissed her good night at her doorstep, then drove home instead of staying the night like he usually does.

The drive to the hotel holds nothing but silence. Silence, and the questions that flutter around his mind. The questions override the silence, and he wishes he just drowned out his thoughts with Kensi's techno music. Or alcohol. He could do to drown everything with alcohol tonight.

"I'm meeting my wife here," Deeks tells the bored-looking clerk behind the front desk. "She must have gotten in a few hours ago, but my phone died while I was still on the road."

"Name please," he sighs, and Deeks takes pity on the probable college kid working late hours.

Deeks slips him a $20 and replies, "Michael Abrams." The sizable tip was more in hopes of the kid not asking for his identification than anything else. His driver's license says Martin Deeks and that wouldn't help with anything.

Thankfully, the kid types something into the computer, swipes a keycard, and slides it across the counter. "Room 431."

Deeks nods his thanks and chuckles to himself. It's just like Georgia to get the same room they were in the last time they were here. She's nothing if not meticulous.

The elevator ride to the fourth floor nearly kills him. His foot taps uncontrollably and he's suddenly filled with the urge to grip his gun and do a full sweep of the floor. The doors open and he nearly sprints down the hall to Room 431.

Deeks slides his keycard through the slot and sighs in relief when the green dots flash and the door unlocks. In the split second after he realizes this could all be a trap but before he can reach for his gun, the door flings itself open.

"Fucking finally. Took you long enough, Deeks. Honestly, I was a bit worried that you were going to stay the night at your girlfriend's house."

Georgia grabs his hand and pulls him into the room. He doesn't make a comment, doesn't ask how she knows about Kensi. He can't help but stare. The room is too hot, too stuffy, his brain is whirling a mile a minute and he thinks he might faint. Not pass out, not black out, but actually faint.

_What an embarrassing way to greet your dead undercover wife_, Deeks thinks.

"Hey," Georgia greets quietly, stepping backwards into the room, leading him to follow with just the tips of her fingers on his.

Deeks jerks his hand back with more force than necessary, and tries to ignore the look of hurt on her face. It's all he can do to keep from getting too close to her, from wrapping his arms around her and never letting her go. Or slamming her against the wall and demanding answers. Demanding justice for every injustice against him caused by her death.

Georgia sucks in a deep breath and skims her eyes over his body.

"Well, you look good," she tries.

"So do you. Much more alive than I remember," Deeks starts. And just like that, every emotion that he felt all those years ago comes slamming into his mind.

"I know you have a lot of questions, Deeks, but first–"

Deeks cuts her off with a cynical guffaw. "No, no, no. You don't get to make the rules here, Georgia. But you're right. I do have a lot of questions."

Georgia has the wherewithal to look apologetic and nods her assent for him to continue.

"First, how did you get that bullet out of your skull? Because the last time I saw you, you had a bullet wound. Right. About. Here." Deek taps his forefinger twice against the middle of her forehead.

Big mistake, because now he is in her space and he can breathe her in and _god dammit she hasn't changed a single bit. __  
><em>

Georgia takes his hand in hers before he can decide if he wants to kiss her. She smiles sadly at him, as if she knows exactly what he is thinking. Grabbing a flashdrive from her pocket, Georgia places it reverently into Deeks's hand.

"All of the information you need is here. Get some rest while you can," Georgia nods her head toward the empty bed, and for the first time Deeks realizes there is nothing in the room. Not a suitcase, not a purse, nothing but the two of them.

"Maybe I'll see you around." It takes all his willpower, but he walks away.


	6. Chapter 6

**The one where he finds his answers.**

* * *

><p><strong>December 26, 2008<strong>

Deeks should have known that it was going to end this way. Nothing has ever worked out for him in his life, so why should he get his happy ending now? He almost can't see through the tears blurring his vision, choking him, swallowing him whole. But he knows it's her.

"Detective, because of the nature of her death, I'm afraid we cannot allow you to enter the room," the attendant tells him, voice quiet and unassuming. The attendant in the Los Angeles county morgue. Because she's dead.

Deeks thinks he nods at the man, but he isn't sure. He isn't sure of anything at the moment, not since he got the call from his supervisor telling him to get the fuck out of their cover house and back to the station.

_We think you've been made. Your mission is over. Abrams is dead_.

How did it get this bad? The mission was never supposed to end like this. Her life was never supposed to end like this. But it did. And he can't look at anything but the red circle in the middle of her forehead, marring her otherwise perfect face.

Deeks feels a hand on his shoulder, guiding him to the exit of the morgue. He wonders if Georgia closed her eyes or if she looked straight into her killer's eyes when she got her brains blasted out.

Deeks vomits on the floor.

* * *

><p>"Georgiana," Victoria's voice singsongs. "Wake up."<p>

Georgia shakes her head minutely, just enough to let Victoria and Ben know that she is awake.

"I can't believe you fuckers thought you had to drug me," Georgia rasps.

Ben laughs, a little too loudly and a little too suddenly.

"We wanted to put on a convincing show, Gigi. We couldn't do that if you still had eye movements."

Georgia hates that nickname. She hates her ex-partner a little bit too. She hates the situation. She wants to fall back into the black hole that swallowed her when Ben had given her the initial injection to slow her heartbeat in the perfect imitation of death. Georgia opens her eyes anyway.

"He's gone," Victoria reports. Obviously she is talking about one Marty Deeks.

"I can see why you felt the way you did about him," Ben sneers. "Hot, blond, muscular. Just your type."

"And there it is. Green-eyed monster," Georgia deadpans as Victoria helps her sit up.

The three of them are in the LA morgue, solidifying Georgia's cover as a dead woman. Perks of being CIA operatives, no questions asked when they were escorted into the morgue by important people.

Ben had been the closest thing to a partner at the CIA, always on joint operations together. She knew he loved her, and no matter how desperately she wanted to, she couldn't love him back. There was a disconnect after he went a little crazy on the torture of a suspected terrorist on a mission they had in the Philippines. Of course, she didn't tell her superiors, protecting his career, but their relationship definitely took a hit. The sex they'd continued having after that mission up until she accepted the reassignment had just served to complicate things.

Victoria sends Ben a glare as she lifts a water bottle to her sister's lips. "Calm down. I already have one crying baby at home, I don't need to deal with another here."

Georgia smiles slyly at Victoria when Ben lets out an indignant huff. She raises an eyebrow and Victoria interprets her silent question as she always has.

"The husband's got it all covered. Karina is a great daughter, but, shit, am I glad to be out of the house."

"Out of the house to fake your twin sister's death," Georgia finishes for her. Another look and Victoria takes her cell phone out of her purse.

"Still no call from Detective Deeks. Should I play the catatonic sister too shocked to say anything or the screamer when I see him at the station?"

Georgia shakes her head and sighs. "I don't fucking know. Just sell it that I'm dead."

"As if this make up isn't convincing enough," Ben adds with a gesture toward the perfect circle of a fake hole through her head. He seems pretty proud of himself for the red splotch of special FX paint he'd acquired from the CIA wardrobe department.

She doesn't even smile at his comment. How far they had fallen from their once-inseparable partnership. Georgia almost misses the friend she had in Ben, but if she allows herself to think about great friendships and partnerships and relationships, her mind is going to drift to Deeks and she won't be able to complete her assigned mission to take down Hassan Nasir and his entire network, which so clearly failed the first time around.

Her real mission is to save Deeks, no matter what the cost. And sitting on the cold metal of an examination table in the Los Angeles county morgue, begging her heartbeat to return to normal and her eyes to stop producing tears that she has to blink away, she knows that the cost is already at an all-time high.

"Ben, arrange for transport out of here. Send a memo to Deeks that my body is being shipped immediately to New York. Toria, get us a plane back to Langley after you drop by the station. They better call soon, since Deeks just ID'ed me."

Her ex-partner nods solemnly this time. At least Ben can still do his job, despite his feelings for her. "I hope this works out for you, Georgia, because I've never seen a man that distraught over a dead _undercover_ wife."

Georgia inhales deeply and murmurs, "It wasn't just undercover."

* * *

><p><strong>December 2014<strong>

Deeks breaks all sorts of traffic laws to get back to his place, then all sorts of NCIS and LAPD protocol when he plugs in the nondescript black flashdrive that Georgia had given him into his laptop. His mind keeps flashing to the way that her eyes had seemed to beg him to stay with her that night. For whatever reason, Deeks feels like he was betraying Kensi. He wasn't, because he didn't sleep with Georgia, but there was no denying the emotions in the room.

There's no right way to do this, he supposes. It's not like it's a class covered at the Police Academy on how to deal with your dead undercover wife and almost-real wife coming back from the dead.

It's an encrypted file, password protected. Of course it is.

_MRSAbrams._

An ominous flashing red pop-up warns him that he only has four tries remaining before the flashdrive self-destructs. "Something involving your sister, maybe?"

_G1a&T0r1a_

Three tries.

T0r1a&G1a

Two tries. "The flashing red is a bit excessive," Deeks mutters. He grinds out, "What are you thinking, Georgia?"

He groans and lowers his head into his hands. "Georgia, Georgiana, Georgia, Geor– Oh." Deeks laughs to himself as he types in the next characters.

_L1k3Th3C0untry_

A green box pops up congratulating him on entering the correct password and requesting he wait for the request to process. "Georgia, like the country. Your first words to me. Obviously."

There is a series of folders with different dates ranging from January 2, 2008 up until December 21, 2014, yesterday. He clicks on yesterday's folder. The only file in the folder is a video labeled "I knew you'd click here first." Deeks allows a smile to cross his face at her presumptive attitude and double clicks to open the video file.

Georgia's face suddenly fills his screen. The video quality is pretty low, but the shocking blue of her eyes is still the same. Deeks can't tell much from the plain background, a dark wood headboard, but he thinks it's from the hotel.

"Hey, Deeks," Georgia starts with an awkward chuckle. "I feel kind of stupid talking to myself here. I guess I'm not really talking to myself, since you're going to be watching this, I hope. Um."

The feed cuts in an obvious redo on Georgia's part in filming the video, likely on her laptop webcam.

"Okay, let's start this again, Deeks," Georgia takes a deep breath. "I know you have a lot of questions. And I am going to go out on a limb and say right now that you didn't stay in the hotel room to get your answers. I know this is a lot to take in."

Deeks shakes his head at how well she still knows him. It's true, he walked out because he didn't know how to process his emotions with her standing right there, alive and breathing.

"And I'm sorry for all of this. You have to know that, Deeks, that I am so, so, unbelievably sorry that I caused you all of this pain. I only did this to keep you safe, and I truly want you to believe that. I don't want to explain too much of this right now, because I want explain the shitty parts to you in person.

"What you need to know is that I was sent to Los Angeles to infiltrate the LAPD investigation on John Diederich and his insurance business. We gave LAPD the tip that Hassan Nasir was involved. I was placed there to recruit Delia Nasir as an asset for the Central Intelligence Agency. I faked my death six years ago with the help of my sister and former partner from the Agency."

Deeks wants to pause the video. He wants to throw his laptop across the room, but he knows he can't do that. He's already breaking rules by watching this video, by opening the file at all, before reporting it to Hetty or NCIS.

"I stayed under, even after I faked my own death, to try to turn Delia Nasir. It turns out that Delia knows exactly what her husband is involved in. She wasn't just a trophy wife. She's a jihadist wife. A jihadist, period. She's deeply involved herself. That's why I stayed dark for so long. I couldn't risk having her find out that you were LAPD. The CIA threw LAPD off the case and you were done with it. You were out. You were safe.

"Hassan Nasir was convinced that he had a mole in his ranks, which I suppose was you, but he thought it was Diederich. He tortured and killed the man, with no remorse, shortly after your operation was shut down. Nasir didn't know how I died, but after I failed at recruiting Delia... Hassan knows that I'm alive now. He already knows that we were undercover, but he assumes it was FBI, because LAPD doesn't have much jurisdiction with terrorism.

"When I found out that he was the center of an NCIS investigation, that's when I came out of the dark. Hassan already had a hefty reward over my head. He sent four of his men after me, and I killed three of them. I left the fourth for you, and I know you already interrogated him to get Nasir's name. The guys were all low-level, so you probably won't get anything more than his name. Which you already know.

"Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know how much the guy told you, but all that you need to implicate Hassan Nasir in all sorts of crime is on this flashdrive. Names, dates, locations, a few charts and graphs. Intel I collected. I know you're wondering why I didn't give it to the CIA or Interpol first."

Georgia lets out a short burst of laughter, her first sign of actual emotion throughout the entire video. The rest of it sounded like she was reciting case facts to her superiors.

"Both the CIA and Interpol will be getting this information in two weeks. That gives NCIS a decent head start, don't you think? I wanted you to get your closure, whatever kind of closure you can get from bringing down Triple-H," Georgia smiles slightly at his stupid codename for Hassan Nasir. "If anyone can find him, it'd be you. Your team is renowned for your accomplishments at taking out terrorists. This case won't be any different."

She pauses to wipe a tear away from her cheek. "I'm sorry, Deeks."

The video cuts to black. A message pops up alerting Deeks that this file is self-destructing, but the rest of the folders remain. He flips through the folders, impressed with the thoroughness of everything Georgia had found and put together.

It has lists of places that Nasir is likely to be located, but Georgia has found that he never stays in one place for too long. There is no pattern to his movements, and that's what's kept him alive and in the game for so long.

Deeks takes out his cell phone, poised to enter her number when he realizes that he never asked for it. For a split second, he contemplates going back to the hotel, but he assumes she has already left.

He selects Kensi's name instead and doesn't wait for her to greet him before he blurts out, "I have intel on the Nasir case."

* * *

><p><strong>January 2015<strong>

"Guys, we have an intruder alert at the Boatshed," Eric squeaks. He doesn't hesitate to put the video feed on the big screen, rewinds it a bit.

She pushes up the floorboard in the interrogation room from the ocean and hoists herself up onto the floor without a problem. Wringing out her long dark hair, she pulls the strands from her braid only to retwist them into a knot at the base of her neck. She glances at the camera in the corner of the room and repeats the same gesture she had made weeks earlier when she reappeared on a different camera.

Kensi's eyes widen when she realizes who the woman in the Boatshed video is.


	7. Chapter 7

**The one where he still trusts her implicitly. The one where he takes what he's owed and still hates her for it. **

* * *

><p><strong>December 2014<strong>

He selects Kensi's name instead and doesn't wait for her to greet him before he blurts out, "I have intel on the Nasir case."

"Deeks, what? It's like one in the morning, why are you working the case?"

"I need you to not ask any questions right now. I'll call Hetty. I'll swing by your place and we're going back to Ops. Can you be ready in 20?"

"Yeah. See you in 20."

To Kensi's everlasting credit, she doesn't ask him any other questions. Was she sitting bolt straight in her bed, trembling a little bit? Yes, but Deeks doesn't need to know that.

When Deeks picks her up, the silence in the car is nearly suffocating. The only other time that Kensi could remember being this uneasy around Deeks was years ago, when Deeks nearly shot a man in cold blood for the death of Jess Traynor.

_I guess the situation is similar. A dead partner. A man responsible for that death. Except Abrams isn't dead. _

That doesn't make the current discomfort any better. Kensi thought she knew all there was to know about Deeks. This just served to remind her that no matter what kind of relationship they had, she still doesn't know his secrets. That thought unnerves her.

"Deeks, I need you to tell me how you acquired this intel," Kensi tries. She is proud of herself when her voice sounds like the calm and controlled tones of Special Agent Blye instead of terrified Girlfriend Kensi. _  
><em>

"I need you to stop asking me that," Deeks counters. If he had any sort of levity in his voice, it would have been their typical joking. But he sounds too somber, too unlike himself.

They get to the Mission after Sam and Callen, who have apparently broken traffic laws and possibly laws of physics to get there. No one questions how Hetty is the first one there to greet them when they walk in.

"The flashdrive, Mr. Deeks." Hetty motions and Deeks tosses the flashdrive to Nell, who looks worse for the wear.

The case had been taking a toll on all of them, but it seems that Nell has been pulling extra duty. Had she even changed clothes from the day?

"You told me you did not know where Ms. Abrams would have gone," Hetty states, infuriatingly calmly.

"She provided intel," Deeks doesn't elaborate, much to Kensi's annoyance.

"How did she have your number?"

"She never called me." Deeks barks out a quick, cynical laugh and points to a folder labeled _CN Desert Olympus _for Nell to pull up on the main screen. "Codename Desert Olympus is the main base that Georgia has found Hassan Nasir to frequent. If Nasir isn't there, his wife Delia and his younger sister Adira is. Delia has a four month old son, Hamiz."

The team is attentive in listening to Deeks rattle off facts of the case. No one asks anything else.

"You want us to take the complex," Callen surmises when Deeks finishes speaking.

"Tonight," Deeks confirms with a short nod. Kensi glances to Hetty, who simply nods slowly in agreement.

"I will get thermal imagery on the complex. If there is a chance that Nasir is in the building, we will break in," Hetty approves, before furrowing her brow in thought. "On second thought, hostages can be a good motivator. Ms. Jones, pull up the photos of Delia and Adira Nasir. I want you to sear these images into your minds, because you will be capturing them as leverage against Hassan Nasir."

* * *

><p><strong>January 2015<strong>

"What the fuck, Georgia?" Deeks mutters to himself.

Hetty spares a moment to glare disapprovingly at his language, but otherwise doesn't comment. "Mr. Deeks and Mr. Callen, go to the Boatshed immediately. Bring Ms. Abrams a change of clothes as well, please."

"I'll go," Kensi volunteers immediately, halfway across the OPS Center floor before Hetty's voice interrupts.

"Ms. Blye, you and Mr. Hanna will be continuing the search for our suspect, Hassan Nasir. While Ms. Abrams's files were helpful, we still do not have an exact location on the man."

"But I'm Deeks's partner." Even Kensi knows it sounds like a silly, whining complaint.

"And I am your boss. I want all of the intel that man has."

Hetty is as stern as usual and leaves no room for argument. They walk out together, Sam and Callen catching on that Kensi and Deeks need to talk.

"One minute, then I want your asses in your respective spots," Callen instructs. Even that is a gracious offer.

Kensi hesitates, not really knowing what she intended to say. She settles for simple.

"Be careful, okay?"

By the way his face hardens, Deeks doesn't take too well to simple.

"She's not dangerous."

His tone is sharp and annoyed, but Kensi thinks that she may be reading too much into that.

"She killed three people in broad daylight in a very public location."

"Three terrorists," Deeks corrects immediately. "Who were incidentally also trying to kidnap her."

It's not as if he hasn't already seen Georgia, gone to her at her bidding without a second thought or regard for his safety, he wants to add. He doesn't.

Kensi doesn't know what else to say, since technically he is right, so she just pats his bicep and walks. He's on her heels in seconds, but neither of them say anything until they are about to part ways.

"Kensi," Deeks seems to want to say something profound. But just as suddenly as he starts, Kensi sees him shut down.

"We've never been good at communication. Why start now?" Kensi asks, playing innocent. Deeks looks at her like she slapped him across the face. She turns and walks to her desk even with her name on his lips.

"What'd Kensi have to say?" Callen asks as Deeks buckles his seatbelt.

"Just told me to be careful."

"You think Abrams is dangerous?"

Deeks shoots a glare at Callen, and that is enough of an answer for him. Of course Georgia is dangerous; she is a walking weapon. But she is not and never will be dangerous to him.

The rest of the drive is taken in silence, senses heightened and minds whirling.

Callen parks the car but doesn't get out. "You want video on this, Deeks?"

The offer is clear. Does Deeks need privacy with Georgia before the rest of the team cuts in? Deeks shakes his head and gets out of the car.

"It's been six years, Callen. I buried my demons when I buried her."

That's not true in the slightest, and even Callen knows it.

Neither of them say anything when they enter the Boatshed. They know that Georgia is still perched in the chair in the interrogation room, having closed the trap door leading to the ocean below. She had spent a few minutes splashing her feet around the water before getting bored and seating herself on the wooden chair in the room.

Callen gestures toward the door. "I'll wait here, observe."

Deeks nods and pushes open the door to the interrogation room.

"You always did like to go for a swim. Even if it was a bit chilly. Seriously, how are you in shorts right now? Not that your legs don't look banging, but, shit, Georgia, aren't you freezing cold?"

Deeks rambles as he knows she expects him to as he opens the door and tosses her a fluffy towel, one of his extra shirts, and a clean pair of his boxers. Georgia catches the items and quirks her lips up in a silent thank you. She leaves the dry clothes on the table and strips off her shirt. Unabashedly staring at the camera in the corner of the room and throwing a wink, she unclasps her bra and slides off her jean shorts.

He uses the moment to skim his eyes over her skin, not even sexually. He's genuinely worried when he sees the mottled blue-black of severe bruising across her right ribs. She's lost weight, he notices, but still looks good for having been dead for six years.

If he'd been told six years ago that he would find her body anything less than downright sexy, he would have laughed. He cringes at her visible rib bones and pale skin instead.

"You're not supposed to get those stitches wet," Deeks says conversationally, gesturing to the black thread holding together a vicious knife wound on the left part of her abdomen. It looks about a week old, and he reminds himself to grab the first aid kit for her. After she gives him answers.

"Eh. I've done worse things with worse injuries," Georgia responds noncommittally.

Deeks believes her. In the seconds that he sees her bare upper body, he counts three bullet scars and six knife scars on her front alone. He averts his gaze and pushes down his guilt.

"And so have you. How are you feeling after the shit storm at Desert Olympus?"

Deeks raises a brow questioningly. Not that he would admit it, but his injuries still plague him. "You knew it was rigged?"

"No. I was going to take the complex, but I don't have a team." The apology in Georgia's eyes tells Deeks all he needs to know. She really did not expect their mission to go to pieces when his team tried to break in to the Desert Olympus complex.

"Are you even here with CIA permission?" Deeks blurts out. He really is curious. The way that she's fluttering around, it seems more likely that she is on a vengeance mission herself. She's taken too many risks coming out into the open after so long.

"I'm with Interpol, for the time being. They give me a long leash," Georgia offers with a shrug. "Hope your friends wanted a strip tease."

Georgia scrubs the towel across her naked upper body before slipping on Deeks's shirt that skims the middle of her muscular thighs. She slips out of her practical black bikini panties and slingshots them onto the table with the rest of her wet clothes. She puts on his dry boxers and towel dries her hair.

"My friends want answers. And so do I." Deeks still can't stop staring at her. She's alive.

Georgia nods for him to continue and he realizes he hasn't actually asked her a question.

"What the actual fuck?"

"Eloquent interrogation tactic," Georgia laughs. She is too put together, Deeks realizes. Her exterior expressions are too scripted. That's what made her seem different than all those years ago. She seems emotionless. Even when she hurdled back into his life and he saw her two weeks ago, she had some semblance of emotion visible on her face, in her always-expressive blue eyes. Now, there's nothing. An alarming amount of nothing.

"You knew I was working with NCIS."

It isn't a question. The gesture Georgia had flashed at the street security camera after her attempted kidnapping and subsequent killing of three terrorists had been enough of an answer. It was too particular, too _them_, for it to have been meant for anyone else. Too sacred.

Somehow, she knew he would be watching. He would find the video feed from after she killed the three terrorists attempting to kidnap her. And he did. She had likely known about his mission from the start.

"Why did you leave the hotel so early, Deeks?" Georgia knows she is in no place to be asking the questions, but she does it anyway. She lets out a frustrated sigh. "You saw my hands in the video surveillance, Deeks. It still holds the same meaning. You walked away before I could _tell_ you anything pertinent to your mission."

"Yes, of course, the mission! Always so concerned about the mission, just like the good little operative you are," Deeks sneers. It's not an attractive look, and he knows it. "You gave me a flashdrive. Didn't have much other reason to stick around. Not like we were going to make sweet love then sail off into the sunset."

To Georgia's credit, she doesn't flinch at his cruel tone, at his words. They had always joked about leaving the job and sailing off into the sunset when they were undercover together. It never happened, it seemed, not for either of them.

"I told you to get some rest. I assumed it was going to be there! I waited there for you to come back. I didn't want to have to break in here, but here we are."

"Here we are," Deeks repeats mindlessly. He blinks twice and tries to regain his composure. "NCIS. Office of Special Projects. The boatshed. How did you know about this place?"

"Hetty tried to recruit me shortly after you began in your liaison position with NCIS. She thought having you here would have been enough of an incentive to get me to stay here. I did a few joint ops with undercover NCIS agents around the same time, but then some other things shook down. I didn't accept the offer."

Deeks shook his head angrily and mentally instructed himself to stay calm. "You could have popped up _four years ago_?"

"Give or take a few months, yes."

"You rejected an offer from _Hetty_?"

"Yeah, well, I was in the middle of something."


	8. Chapter 8

**The one where he takes a page from her book and walks away when he shouldn't.**

* * *

><p><strong>December 2014<strong>

Deeks locks eyes with her the moment before the bombs go off and all goes to hell inside the Desert Olympus complex.

"Michael?" Delia Nasir whispers tearfully. He can't tell if it's because she knows her whole world is about to be brought down by law enforcement or if she is genuinely scared of the situation at hand.

In what could only be described as the worst tactical play of his career, Deeks steps forward to try to urge Delia to come with him, completely forgetting what Georgia had told him in that first video from her flashdrive. Delia is no innocent victim; she is in just as deep as her husband. Deeks should have remembered that.

He remembers only when Delia moves her hand from behind her back and fires a single round into his abdomen.

The explosion goes off before she can take a second shot, but Deeks is already fighting for consciousness and his precious ability to breathe. It doesn't take long for the familiar dark abyss to claim him.

His last thought is of Kensi and how she probably hates him right now. All he knows is that he can't live with that, and he sure as hell won't die with it.

* * *

><p>"Deeks, if you can hear me, you need to wake up," Kensi murmurs to his unconscious form. The nurse says that he is only slightly sedated, that he wasn't in a medically-induced coma. As far as she is concerned, any type of sedation is as good as a coma.<p>

She needs to know what happened back at Desert Olympus when she was clearing the room next to him. She needs to know why the woman Delia shot him. She needs to know if his ex-partner Georgiana Abrams knew about all of this.

It could very well have been a set up. Although Nell and Eric can't detect any spyware capabilities on the flashdrive that Georgiana Abrams had given Deeks, there could have been a bug to attempt shut down Ops. It wouldn't be the first time.

Most of all, though, Kensi needs to know if Deeks blames her for not having his back.

"Deeks, please wake up. We need to talk. Not just about the mission, either. We need to talk about us. There's so much shit that has gone down since your dead ex-partner came back to life," Kensi continued speaking soothingly while stroking Deeks's bruised but thankfully not broken hand. "I know you say that she's a good person, that you trust her, but fucking hell! She nearly got you killed!"

Kensi sighed and lowered her voice, cautiously looking over her shoulder to make sure the door was still mostly closed.

"Okay, I know what you're going to say. She didn't get you killed. Delia Nasir almost killed you, but Abrams gave us the intel. The entire complex was in flames by the time Sam dragged your knocked out ass out of the building. You're fucking lucky that the bullet hit your vest. Dumb bitch couldn't go for a head shot.

"Not that I wanted her to go for a head shot. I'm thankful that she did not shoot you through your head. Your stupid, attractive, brilliant head that a supporting beam hit. Good thing you've got a thick skull.

She laughs to herself at her own joke. "I know, that was terrible. Deeks, wake up and tell me that was terrible."

Kensi lowers her voice. "Deeks, wake up and tell me you love me. Because I love you."

* * *

><p><strong>January 2015<strong>

"Your sister was a nice touch, by the way."

Deeks can't bother denying the bitterness that laces his voice. Hell, it goes beyond bitter; there is nothing but caustic acidity and poison in his words. It is like he is trying to kill her without weapons.

"Thanks, I knew you'd like that one." Georgia injects a blasé inflection into her response. If he is going to play a game with her, she is going to play it better.

"Please, don't hesitate to give her my regards. Really, A-plus performance on her end. Having your identical twin doing her banshee shrieking at me about how having a partner was supposed to be safer for you, how I was supposed to keep you alive, that definitely didn't mentally fuck me up for years afterwards or anything, but still. Next time you see her, tell Victoria to keep up the great work."

Georgia meets his his eyes defiantly, as if challenging him to continue. He doesn't disappoint.

"Just tell me this one, Gia," Deeks elongates the vowels of his old cutesy name for her, patting himself on the back when Georgia closes her eyes to compose herself for just a moment too long to be natural. He knows his next words are below-the-belt shots, but he can't seem to stop trying to tear her apart word by word. It's only fair. "Is Victoria still in the business too? A whole family of spectacular super-secret agents? Note that I say family, because did you know she had a baby on her hip when she was annihilating any semblance of whatever sanity I had left after ID'ing your body?"

The overwhelming silence between them makes it absolutely clear that Deeks intends for Georgia to actually give him answers to his questions.

"She was CIA at the time." Georgia takes pride in how her voice doesn't waver.

It doesn't hold the anger Deeks is expecting. It carefully doesn't hold much emotion.

"And her baby? She must be, what? Six now? Is she really your sister's kid or just a convenient prop to help solidify your sister's cover? Maybe add a bit more anguish to my already torn-up soul? Hey, kid, I was almost Uncle Marty and I got your Aunt Georgia killed."

"Yes, she's Victoria's daughter."

Deeks lets out a borderline deranged laugh. His voice has been steadily increasing in volume and hysteria since he stepped into the interrogation room with her across the table from him.

"That's just rich, you know. That is fucking hilarious. Hi-lar-ious. All that bullshit you spewed about how undercover agents shouldn't have kids and what do you know! Your own sister was the exception. For all that those words meant to you, we could have had a few little ones of our own, huh?"

Georgia ignores his comments in favor of trying to win the stare-down with her former partner. Her glare must be overpowering because Deeks turns around and lets out what sounds suspiciously like a sob. Somehow, she doesn't feel victorious in any way. In fact, she feels like she has to give some sort of explanation. She isn't used to this give and take; she'd been on her own for so long.

"For what it's worth, Toria was able to get out of the business shortly after I, um, died."

"She had a reason for getting out." Deeks seems to concede, but he doesn't turn around to face her. "What's her daughter's name?"

It sounds almost like a peace offering. Georgia is more than willing to take the olive branch.

"Karina." Georgia clears her throat. "She's perfect. Six years old, curious as anything, brilliant mind. Best thing that ever happened to me."

Deeks nods slowly.

"You're one hell of a liar, Georgiana."

The use of her full name startles her more than his words.

"I'm not lying about my niece, Deeks."

"No, I don't think you are, not about her. I mean, you're one hell of a liar to keep up that charade for five months. Consistently. You didn't break character even once."

"That makes me good at my job," Georgia defends with a shrug Deeks can't see.

"And which job is that? Undercover LAPD, CIA, or double agent for Interpol?"

"Double agent implies that I was selling American secrets. Which you know full well wasn't the case."

"Do I, though? How could I possibly know that?" Deeks prods. So much for a peace offering.

"I'm no traitor to my country, if that's what you're implying, Detective Deeks." Georgia spits out venomously. "I did what I had to do to complete my mission."

"Which was what, exactly?"

"Please. I saved your ass more times that you can count. My dying act was to save your life. Stop with the questions on my loyalty."

Deeks chuckles to himself.

"I don't even know where your loyalty stood."

"It stood with you. I had your back, Deeks, and there is no denying that." Georgia lets out a harsh sigh. "What was I supposed to say when I first met you? 'Hi, my name is Georgia, and I am secretly CIA-slash-Interpol here to infiltrate your mission, and by the way I have my own secret agenda, but you should totally trust me right now.'"

"You would have said anything to gain my trust."

"I would have said anything to complete the mission. Both of our missions. I would have done anything to complete the mission, Deeks, and that's what I tried by dying. I did what I did because I thought it was the only thing I could do to keep you safe. I won't apologize for that."

Deeks still doesn't face her, but Georgia can see his shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly.

"It wasn't fair that I was the one that got to live. I almost ate a bullet more times than you can even imagine, Georgia."

"Why didn't you?"

Deeks knows her words aren't meant to be as callous as they sound. He finally turns and strides purposefully to her side of the interrogation table. Mindful of his injuries, Deeks kneels down in front of her, keeping his eyes on hers to convey the seriousness of his next words.

"Because I _hated_ you. I still do. And I couldn't die with that much hatred in my heart." Deeks lowers his voice so only she could hear him. His tone was gentle, reverent even. He already knows these are the words that will be the perfect wooden stake through her heart. "I loved you more than words can even describe. I think I still might. But that doesn't take away what you did to me, to us, back then. Did I mean anything to you? Or was I just a lover to burn?"

Georgia can't bring herself to answer him. She doesn't know what she would say anyway.

Deeks quickly brings his lips to her temple as Georgia breaks down in silent, mournful tears. Then he walks out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. It would have been better for her if he had slammed the door. The soft click of the door sounds too much like resignation.

"Deeks."

He wants to throw things. He wants to punch a wall. He wants to destroy something. All he knows is that he can't be around Kensi right now.

"Kens, right now isn't a great time for heart-to-hearts. Just get the answers to your fucking questions from her."

Kensi blocks his path with her body anyway. Deeks attempts to sidestep her for the door, but Kensi anticipates his movement.

"Did you love her? Was she the one that... Was she your Jack?"

That wasn't the best start to the conversation, Kensi realizes. But the words are out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she waits frozen for his response. Deeks shakes his head disdainfully.

"You're not stupid, Kensi. You already know the answer to that. Except she didn't walk out on Christmas morning to be a freedom fighter in Afghanistan or whatever Jack did those years between. She fucking died."

For the second time in less than a minute, Deeks walks away from a woman he loves.

Hours later, Eric and Nell still can't find him, and Kensi is out of ideas on where he would go.

"Callen, is Georgiana Abrams still at the Boatshed?" Kensi doesn't need to bother with pleasantries with Callen, in person or over the phone. It's what she's always liked about him.

"Yeah, we're still here. I finished up the interview, but she's taking care of some bad stitches on her side."

Kensi absently wonders if Callen is helping patch her up. She hopes he's not. She knows it's petty, especially since she technically _got_ the man, not that Deeks has ever _not _been hers, at least since she met him. Still, she hopes Georgiana Abrams is in a lot of pain. Georgiana Abrams deserves whatever hell she gets for ruining Deeks like this.

"What kind of idiot gets stitches wet?"

"The kind of idiot who's helping us eliminate a terrorist ring," Callen replies easily. Kensi rolls her eyes at the defensive tone in his voice. He's always been too protective of other CIA operatives.

"Keep her there. I need to ask her a few questions," Kensi instructs shortly.

"What kind of questions? I just did her interview."

"I need to know where Deeks is," Kensi answers.

She hates to admit it, but she thinks Georgiana Abrams might actually know something about Deeks that she doesn't. "He walked out of the Boatshed and into nothing. No one can find him."


	9. Chapter 9

**The one where it all ends.**

* * *

><p><strong>January 2015<strong>

The shrill ring of her iPhone startles her. It's her default ringtone, not the upbeat techno song that Deeks hates and Kensi put as his ringtone in retaliation. Kensi pulls her phone from her pocket and eyes the number. It's a local number, and she's tempted not to answer. She slides the finger on the sceen anyway.

"Hello?" Kensi responds tentatively.

"Just come over here, you stalker."

Three beeps alert her that the call has ended. It's Deeks, much to Kensi's surprise. She thought she had done a fine job of keeping herself hidden, far enough from the cliff face that Deeks is sitting against. Clearly, not a good enough job.

Kensi allows a small smile to grace her face. "Touché."

She makes her way slowly through the sandy bank, boots leaving heavy tracks through the damp sand. She's walking closer to the water's edge than absolutely necessary, but the waves have always provided a certain comfort that she hasn't had in a long time.

"Georgia said you would be here," Kensi calls out when she's close enough to Deeks. He has his knees pulled up to his chest, shoes off, feet buried in the sand.

"Here I am." His voice is lackluster, monotone. Not at all like him.

"How'd she know about this place?" Kensi gestures around, trying hard to keep up the conversation. Her voice is unnaturally peppy, all things considered. "This little sanctuary of yours, I mean. Her hotel is close by, you know."

Deeks pats the ground next to him and waits for Kensi to sit down, close enough that their thighs are brushing. Deeks holds up a flip phone in explanation to the number he used to call her with. He obviously didn't want to be traced with his usual cell phone, but he wanted to stay in contact with her somehow. He throws his arm around her shoulders as if it belongs there. Maybe it does. Maybe she belongs right next to him for all eternity.

"I was here with her awhile back."

Kensi doesn't pry any further into that, just nods slowly and only glances at him out of the corner of her eye. He hasn't properly made eye contact either, so Kensi feels less guilty for not looking straight at him. They continue to stare out into the ocean, both mesmerized by the soothing crash of water against rock, the shimmering white moon bouncing ceaselessly off the surface.

"Sorry I walked out, Kensi," Deeks whispers, but still doesn't face her. He can't stop picturing Kensi's face when she realized he was walking away, out of the Boatshed, away from his problems. Away from her. Just like everyone else.

"It's okay," she whispers back, even though it really is not okay. Of course he knows that, cracking a sideways grin and shaking his head.

"It's not okay. I just, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel."

"I don't think there's any particular way that you are _supposed _to feel. Deeks, the love of your life just marched back from the dead and announced that she's a spy," Kensi checks out of the corner of her eye, hoping for at least some sort of acknowledgement.

She continues when she realizes he isn't going to say much. "You feel however you want to feel. However you need to feel. And I'll be right here with you."

Deeks nods, but doesn't say anything. Kensi doesn't know how long they sit together in the sand, but at some point, Deeks uses the arm around her shoulder to pull her to face him. Their lips meet in a searing kiss, as if Deeks is desperate to express all of his emotions through that one kiss.

"She _was_ the love of my life," Deeks murmurs against Kensi's lips, dipping to take another kiss. "Up until about four years ago."

Kensi's brain is slow to process his words. Four years ago, when they became partners. She knows that he loves her, and this is as close to saying it as they have come. She deepens the kiss until he pulls away.

Deeks brushes the stray hairs away from her face. "She didn't know about Desert Olympus."

Kensi lets out an exasperated sigh. Even though she spent an entire car ride with Georgia from the Boat Shed to this little place on the beach, Kensi couldn't get a good read on the woman. Georgia had sat in the passenger seat, staring mindlessly out the car window. Kensi had tried to make conversation, but was met only with politely short answers. She isn't convinced that Georgia isn't working with their terrorists.

"How do you know?" Kensi demands, breathless and a bit angry. She shrugs off Deeks's arm.

"I know Georgia, and she–"

"You knew her for five months. And even then it was all fake," Kensi can't help but spit out. She knows that it's cruel, denying whatever love Deeks felt for Georgiana Abrams. She didn't know him back then. Maybe he did love Georgia. Maybe he still loves Georgia.

"Kens, you wouldn't understand. Living like that, putting your everyday trust and livelihood in someone else's hands... It changes a person. I can't explain it. But I know it was all real." Deeks scrubs his hand across his face. "That love wasn't fake."

Kensi snorts out a laugh. Her voice is taunting, like she wants to pick a fight with him. "Please. Your entire _lives_ were fake."

Deeks abruptly stands up and brushes the sand off of his jeans. Kensi follows suit, uncertain if he is more likely to walk away again or to start a fight. When he simply stares down at her with acceptance in his eyes, she realizes he isn't going to do either. He's just going to be there with her to help her understand everything he is feeling. He promised to be patient with her.

Kensi doesn't know if there has ever been a single moment when she loved him more than she loves him right now.

* * *

><p><strong>February 2015<strong>

It takes the team the rest of the month of January to hunt down Hassan Nasir's last known location. Three weeks and every resource, called-in favor, and desperate prayer they could conceive. Another week to predict his movements well enough to have a reasonably certain estimate of where he will be.

During that time, Kensi forces herself to stay with Georgia more often than not, if for no other reason than to ensure that Georgia is the real deal. That she isn't a lying terrorist-sympathizing life-ruiner. Much to her chagrin, Kensi begins to genuinely like Georgia.

Georgia's lively, sarcastic, fun to be around. She's as sharp as the blades she carries, rivaling Kensi's own knife collection. Exceptional with a range of handguns and rifles, although Georgia makes it abundantly clear that she would rather be in close combat.

No wonder Deeks had been so captivated with the woman. Kensi is far from captivated, but she doesn't hate Georgia as much as she thought she would. She feels more confident in her relationship with Deeks that she knows full well that he won't run off with Georgia. Unlike with Talia, Kensi has no intention of headbutting Georgia.

On the day that they finally catch a break on the case, the five of them are gathered around the Ops Center screen, chatting with a woman who is a literal carbon copy of Georgiana Abrams.

Kensi wants to laugh at the way Georgia and Victoria interact, even across the country and only on screens. They communicate in their own secret language, double-sided words and inside phrases that the team doesn't understand. Kensi can't decide if it's because their CIA training is so ingrained in them, or if they have their own secret twin language. She's always wondered if telepathic twin communication was real.

"You and your sister ever get partnered on missions?" Kensi asks Georgia as they head back down the stairs to their desks, knowledge and plans forming in their heads. Georgia shoots Kensi a mischievous smile.

"All the time, especially in the beginning. Constantly together at the Farm because our scores were so similar. It was like being kids again, fucking with everyone around us who couldn't tell us apart."

Deeks groans, "You're _those_ twins. Obnoxious."

"It was cute when we were kids," Georiga offers helpfully. Kensi laughs. "Borderline psychopathic as adults, but hey, we have to get our kicks somehow."

"Hey, we've got something," Sam calls from halfway up the stairs to the Ops Center. "We've managed to triangulate Nasir's cell phone."

"What we _think_ is Nasir's phone," Callen corrects as Sam rolls his eyes. "Santa Monica Pier. He hasn't been this far out in the open, according to his cell location history."

"So it could be a set up?" Georgia presumes correctly, according to Hetty's nod.

Callen stares at her with a slight grin on his face. Georgia matches his gaze with a playfulness in her eyes that almost brings Deeks to his knees. God, how he's missed that look.

"You know it's going to be dangerous, right?" Callen tries to warn her with a raise of his brow. "Hassan is out for blood, given that we triggered the explosions that killed his wife and kid. This could end up being downright suicidal. It's _that_ dangerous."

Then Georgia rolls her eyes in a move so typical of her, obviously throwing caution to the wind. "I'm in."

Callen outright smiled at that. "Work fast and stay under the radar. The three of you get to the Pier now, split up, and cover as much ground as you can. Sam and I will bring in backup as soon as possible."

* * *

><p>"He's a good partner to have, you know," Georgia murmurs quietly enough that only Kensi picks up on her sentiment.<p>

The usual daily chatter around the boardwalk masks her reverent tone. They are playing the typical LA beach-going tourist girls, but they are both desperately searching for their mark. As it turns out, Victoria had used her former CIA contacts and resources to track Nasir to Santa Monica beach. Despite being out of the intelligence gathering industry, she never really left.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." Kensi sneaks a glance at the other woman, breaking her gaze away from the peaceful serenity of the ocean tide, then continuing to scope the crowd for Hassan Nasir. Somehow, she thinks Georgia might be as peaceful as the waves. She clears her throat awkwardly. "Do you ever regret walking away?"

Georgia snorts out a laugh, but it sounds more vicious than humorous. "I didn't walk. I sprinted. When it all hit me, how deep I was with him, I felt like I was drowning. I couldn't breathe because all I had was him. Him and the mission. The mission and him. I couldn't separate the two. It was suffocating. It shouldn't have been, but it was. I couldn't get far enough away. I got him away from the mission when it all started to fall apart, but when it all hit me, what I had done... Suffice it to say, it was not my proudest moment. I got him away from the dangers of the mission, but it was at a cost."

"Was that really why you faked your own death? Or was it to get away from Deeks? I mean, he's pretty bad sometimes, but maybe not fake-your-own-death bad." Kensi cringes at how terrible of a joke that was.

Georgia smiles anyway, mostly out of politeness but also because she feels so light. Giving up your deepest secret tends to do that, apparently.

"No. It really was for the mission. It kept Deeks out of the fire, but I can't imagine that it didn't kill him, thinking he was responsible for my death. And knowing that I caused all that," Georgia trails off and takes a deep breath before continuing, not quite meeting Kensi's eyes. "But if I could go back and find another way to do it, I don't know if I would have."

Kensi stares unabashed and a little taken aback by Georgia's thoughts. Her questioning look must be obvious to read because Georgia just smiles serenely before continuing.

"He's better. He's in a better place. He's got a better woman. One who won't walk away."

"Or sprint," Kensi adds playfully, hoping she isn't crossing a line.

"Only place you'll be sprinting is his bed."

Kensi does a double take to really process her words, then sees Georgia's lecherous grin and she groans, much to Georgia's satisfaction.

"Oh, I didn't cross a line, did I?" Georgia's smirk breaks into a full grin at the look of disbelief on Kensi's face. The twinkle in her eyes lets Kensi know that she doesn't actually care if she overstepped a boundary. Not that Kensi isn't used to it. Georgia and Deeks have a few things in common after all.

"You just completely ruined the moment," Kensi sighs and shakes her head in mock disappointment.

"Kens, Georgia, I'm coming your way," Deeks voice in her ear interrupts her light mood and forces the somber reality of their mission to the forefront of her mind. "There's been nothing so far, but Eric says Hassan's cell signal is still in the area. Sam and Callen are on their way with some plainclothes FBI."

"Excuse me, sir?" Georgia stops to ask Deeks, pretending to be lost. "Can you tell me where Third Street Promenade is?"

The flash of the sun against smooth, cylindrical silver metal catches Kensi's eye from the top of the roof just close enough to get a good shot without having to be an expert in long-range weapons. She is well-versed in long-range weapons, though, and this glint of the gun is too obvious to miss.

Before she even realizes what she's doing, Kensi yells out, "Sniper!"

Her voice is drowned out by the crack of a heavy-caliber gun shot without a silencer, before she can even take aim with her sidearm at the impossible distance.

A dead weight slams against Kensi's side hard enough to take her down with it. She doesn't know where to look: at the lifeless ocean blue eyes or at the scarlet red blood flowing between them.

Kensi pushes the body off to vomit onto the sidewalk underneath her.


	10. Chapter 10

**The one where it all begins.**

* * *

><p><strong>February 2015<strong>

Somewhere in the back of his reptilian brain, Deeks knows the next bullet is meant for him. He drops to the ground next to Georgia's very dead body just in time for the bullet to graze his shoulder instead of his face, barely missing his Kevlar vest. He moves on instinct, dragging Kensi behind the nearest car.

The adrenaline pumping through his blood overrides the searing pain of the bullet wound turning his shirt red with blood. He doesn't realize it, but his name is dropping from Kensi's lips like a breathless, chanted prayer. He can't hear anything with the pounding in his ears and the white noise in his head.

His world recedes to the black-lined tunnel vision focused on Georgia's forehead, blood slowly trickling into her hairline. Georgia's dark hair is naturally streaked with gold and red, and the blood mixes with the deep brown strands to make them almost black.

The scene is all too familiar. Isn't it funny? Didn't she die from a bullet to the brain last time? Except this time it's real.

His vision blurs and it takes him ages to realize it's because he's crying. Kensi's face swarms into his line of sight and he wonders how long he's been staring.

"Callen took out Nasir. He was on the roof of a motel nearby. It's clear. We're safe," Kensi reports. She looks just as shocked as he's sure he does, if not more. She is the one who was tackled by a dead body.

Georgia's dead body.

Deeks nods mindlessly, then pushes off the ground, offering Kensi his hand. He pulls her up and into a tight embrace.

"I need space," Deeks murmurs monotonously into her ear.

"I'll handle the scene," Kensi offers quickly, not releasing her arms from around his back. "Please just don't disappear. Don't hide from me."

Deeks promises nothing out loud, but he has no plans to hide from Kensi. It doesn't matter anyway. She will always find him. He turns and walks into the gathering crowd, ignoring the gasps and offers for medical help. He glances down at his left shoulder and laughs because he's made it far enough away without Kensi noticing his wound.

She wouldn't have let him go if she had seen it.

* * *

><p>Deeks is alone, laughing like a madman when Kensi finds him at the cliff face on the same beach that Georgia had pointed her to last time, the beach where he and Georgia frequented during their time undercover, bottle of whiskey nearly empty in his hand. Kensi can't remember a time she's ever seen him this drunk. Even after the worst of their cases, she's never seen anything like this from him.<p>

"Hey, Deeks."

It's a simple enough greeting, her head tilted in concern at him leaning dependently against the rocks of a cliff that couldn't possibly pass for comfortable. His eyes can't focus on her and the moonlight does nothing to hide the tears that he's been crying since Hassan Nasir's bullet tore through Georgia's skull.

"Kensi. Kensalina. Beautiful Kensi," Deeks slurs through giggles. He sounds like he's long since lost touch with reality.

"Let me take care of this, okay?" Kensi inquires carefully, gently lowering herself to the sand on her knees in front of Deeks's left side and bloody shoulder.

Kensi doesn't wait for his approval before pulling his long sleeved shirt over his head. It's a testament to how much alcohol he's consumed when he doesn't even wince at the movement. The bullet wound starts bleeding again. Kensi swipes an alcohol pad across the gash on his shoulder, blessedly not as deep as she thought it was after seeing the video feed Eric sent to her phone.

"You should have told me about this, Deeks," Kensi scolds. Even then, it isn't serious. She can't force herself to be mad at him. She knows how adrenaline works; her own bruises didn't start throbbing until hours later.

"'s cold," Deeks snickers and reaches for Kensi's hip. He splays his fingers under her shirt and she shivers at the freezing grasp of his usually warm fingers.

February in Los Angeles isn't bad by any means, but it's still too cold for Deeks to stay out on the beach for the past seven hours without a jacket. Kensi mentally curses at herself for listening to Granger's orders to secure the scene instead of following him.

At least she can tell him that Georgia's body has been taken to the morgue and her sister has been notified. As if that's any sort of consolation.

"Yeah, it's cold," Kensi agrees gently, quietly. She finishes spreading antibiotic ointment and tapes on a gauze pad. Digging around her bag, Kensi pulls out one of his flannel shirts, one she won't admit that she stole from his closet to add to her own wardrobe, and guides his arms through and secures the buttons. She skims her hands down his arms to put on his leather jacket over his shirt. She tosses his sandy Kevlar vest and Beretta into the duffle bag and zips it closed.

Deeks has been quiet while she had been patching him up, but he resumes his deep laughter.

"What's so funny?"

Kensi moves to his uninjured side and throws the blanket that she brought with her across both of their legs. Deeks snuggles closer to her, all the while laughing like he has the biggest secret to tell.

"She hated long range weapons," Deeks cackles, before collapsing to his side over Kensi's thighs and curling his legs to his chest. He buries his face against her jeans. Kensi can no longer tell if he's laughing or crying by the way his shoulders shake, but she still strokes her hand up and down his bicep soothingly.

Kensi's legs have fallen asleep, but it seems that Deeks has as well, so she doesn't dare move. He shifts and lets out quiet noises as if he's trying to keep from sobbing outright even in sleep. She digs a hole in the sand an arm's length away from her and pours the remaining copper liquid in before burying it. No more whiskey.

It seems like hours later when Kensi has her eyes closed, head leaning against the sharp rocks. Deeks shoots bolt straight awake with an anguished cry that breaks her heart. She instinctively reaches her hands to his shoulders and repeats his name four times before he even turns to look at her.

"It was you," Deeks whimpers and touches her face reverently like he needs reassurance that she's really there. "It was you, not Georgia."

That's what his nightmare is about, her death. Kensi understands; all of her nightmares are about losing him.

"No. It's not me."

Kensi leans in to his hand on her cheek before he pulls back suddenly to run to the ocean. He drops to his knees in the wet sand and wretches into the waves. Kensi kneels down at his side, ignoring the icy waves soaking into her jeans, and brushes her hand through his hair.

"Let's get you home."

Kensi drives, momentarily wondering if Deeks's car is still at the beach or if he walked. She opts to take him to his house, let Monty out, then stay with him through the night.

It turns out to be one of the longest nights of her life, with Deeks alternating between forcefully vomiting in his toilet and sobbing uncontrollably on his bathroom floor. Kensi knows he probably doesn't want her to see him like this, but he's too weak and damaged to turn her away.

Kensi cries along with him.

* * *

><p>The sun rises as it does after even the worst of tragedies, and the new day greet Deeks with a throbbing headache and the smell of pancakes. He manages to stumble to his feet, splashing cold water on his face and gargling mouth wash to get the taste of booze and puke out of his mouth.<p>

Deeks only crashes into his hallway wall twice on the way to the kitchen where Kensi is standing next to two plates of pancakes. The sun is shining through the window in a way that spotlights Kensi. Even after staying up all night, Kensi is the most beautiful sight he's ever seen.

"When we were canvassing the scene, before," Kensi starts and gestures awkwardly, "Georgia said something to me that doesn't make sense and I can't stop thinking about it."

"Hmm?" Deeks flops down at his kitchen table as Kensi sets the plate in front of him with a bottle of water.

"She said you were too good to just be a lover to burn." Kensi doesn't want to ask, but her thoughts won't stop fluttering around her mind like a hundred wasps trying to escape a glass prison.

Deeks drops his fork and scrubs his hands down his face. It was the answer to the question he asked Georgia when she was in the Boatshed. Was he just a useless _fuck_ to her, just a lover to burn? Or did he mean something to her?

Clearly, he meant something to her.

"It was different, Kens."

She doesn't say anything, just let's Deeks work through his thoughts.

"I loved her differently than I love you, Kensi." He looks at her, really looks at her, for the first time since Georgia bled out and died in front of them. "Oh, come on, get that look off your face. You know I love you."

Deeks's tone is trying desperately for levity, and she graces him with a smile for his effort.

It's true. Kensi does know that he loves her, that he has loved her for ages, but they hadn't said the words aloud to each other before now.

"I'm sorry that I, um..." Kensi doesn't know how to apologize for doubting his love for her with Georgia around. It all seems so petty now.

Deeks pulls her close. "Forgiven."

They eat their breakfast in silence, the reality of the world weighing heavily on both of them. That shot could have ended either of their lives. Nothing in their line of work, in their lives, was certain. Except one thing.

"I love you too, Deeks."

* * *

><p><strong>June 2015<strong>

Victoria adjusts the Deeks's bowtie with a sad smile. "She wanted you to be happy, Marty."

Deeks frowns, because Victoria looks exactly like Georgia, sounds exactly like Georgia, except Georgia never called him Marty.

Victoria's dark brown hair is twisted in the same curly knot at the base of her neck that he has seen on Georgia a half dozen times. Georgia always called it her fancy and happy hairdo. She always stressed the _happy_ part, because there was the fancy and unhappy hairdo too. That one could be used at funerals and shitty missions, Georgia had told him. But the fancy and happy hairdo was for looking beautiful when _she_ wanted to, not for when the mission called for it.

"Really. She talked about you so much. While you were partnered, even after. She never meant for her actions to hurt you."

"I know. I know that now."

"She said she wanted this, the wedding, the marriage, the two-point-five kids, the picket fence, and the dogs. If it had been with anyone, if she never faked her death, Marty, I think it would have been with you," Victoria murmurs and finishes straightening his tie.

Victoria looks him in the eyes with the same piercing turquoise blue eyes that still haunt his dreams even months later. "But our lives, the lives of CIA operatives, they don't really go hand-in-hand with the happily-ever-after kinds of love stories."

"What about you, Toria?" Deeks catches himself just in time to say her name instead of her dead sister's. His mind flashes to the beautiful little girl dressed in all black and staring with more brightness and knowledge than any six year old should have, hovering next to her aunt's casket. "You got your happily-ever-after."

"I love Karina, and she is my happily-ever-after. But that doesn't take away from how my husband was gunned down on a mission. That's what Gia wanted to avoid. She never wanted you to die for her actions. Marty, Georgia was no amateur to the spy game. She knew this was how it could all end."

Deeks nods uselessly and fidgets with the sleeves of his tuxedo.

"You are one lucky man. Kensi is a beautiful bride." Victoria kisses Deeks's cheek and uses her thumb to wipe off any residual lipstick. "Consider this your fresh start."

Victoria places Karina in her lap in the front white wooden chair and Deeks tries not to smirk at Callen as he tells some elaborate story in Russian to Victoria's daughter. Callen turns to face Deeks standing in the aisle and finishes his tale to the girl's giggles.

"Didn't think you liked kids, Callen," Deeks says with a raised eyebrow.

"Didn't think you'd ever work up the courage to ask Kensi to marry you, Deeks," Callen volleys back. Sam appears with Michelle at his side, and she ushers the men to their respective places at the makeshift wedding hall in Hetty's grand backyard.

Minutes later, when the violins start playing and Kensi walks down the flower- and light-lined aisle, Deeks thinks everything he's been through has been worth it. Just for this moment.

Just for her.

* * *

><p>"Told you we could live on a yacht," Deeks blurts out mid-kiss.<p>

He's decided that honeymoon kisses are his favorite kisses. Tied with wedding kisses, and married couple kisses, and just about every other kiss he and Kensi have shared. Deeks still can't believe Kensi is his. His fingers skim the gold band on her left ring finger, matching his own. "Just needed the right shipmate."

He waggles his eyebrows suggestively and Kensi laughs.

"This isn't our yacht. This is Hetty's yacht. The yacht she is letting us use to sail around the West Coast, and I think she would kill us if we took permanent residence here."

Deeks pouts playfully before returning his lips to Kensi's. It's her turn to break the kiss this time.

"I would be fine naming my daughter– our daughter Georgia."

"Kensi, you will have to face the very real possibility of me crying every time I see our daughter, but I'll be damned if they aren't tears of joy," Deeks jokes, but the tears already gathering in his eyes are expressing his gratefulness at her offer.

Kensi links her arm though his and leans her cheek against his shoulder. He leans down to kiss her temple comfortingly and whispers, "Thank you. But I love our children too much to make them into the ghosts of our loved ones."

Kensi nods in agreement. "No Georgia's, or Donald's, or Dom's, or Jess's, or Jack's."

"We'll tell them the stories, when they're old enough, but they shouldn't be ghosts themselves. No matter how kindhearted and strong and loving they are," Deeks swallows thickly. "They will know and they will learn from them, but they won't be them. Our kids are going to be their own people. Our own little mutant ninja assassins."

"Or surfers. Or lawyers. Or doctors. They will be whatever they want to be."

"Everything. They will be our everything."

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><p><strong>Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who favorited, followed, and reviewed this story! It's been one hell of a ride, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have.<strong>


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